


Embers and Chamomile

by werestorm



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Claude von Riegan is a Little Shit, Established Relationship, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Fluff and Smut, Other Smut-Related Tags in Chapters, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Power Play, Rope Bondage, Seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:00:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26191588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werestorm/pseuds/werestorm
Summary: Byleth Eisner, the Archbishop and Ashen Demon, thinks herself un-kidnappable.Claude von Riegan would like to propose a bet.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 41
Kudos: 255





	1. The Archbishop's Gambit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In flower symbolism, chamomile means 'may all your dreams and wishes be fulfilled'.
> 
> Established-relationship Claudeleth including some consensual, interaction-based BDSM-flavoured smut. To see full CWs, please go to end notes (possible spoilers).

> Where there is power, there is resistance.  
>  _― Michel Foucault_

“We have reclaimed Count Gloucester’s carriage,” reported the helmeted Alliance scout, standing to attention at the entrance to the war room, and some life flowed back to Lorenz’s chalk-white face.

“Is he unharmed?”

“Save for a few rope burns, yes,” said the scout. “The Empire spies had not got him out past the Great Bridge. We have delivered him back to Gloucester last eve.”

“Thank the goddess he’s safe,” Lorenz breathed. Then his cheeks began to glow as he realised the slip. Byleth and Claude crossed glances; then Claude reached across the table to clap his right hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Lorenz, if you’re about to say anything about how this is an entirely political and objective matter to you, I will stuff your mouth with your own handkerchief. Guardsman, is Count Gloucester well enough to govern?”

Byleth’s lips quirked slightly as she watched Lorenz give Claude a glare cursing enough to turn him and the entire Riegan bloodline into a colony of frogs; it slid off Claude’s smooth surface with nary a trace. The scout proceeded to deliver a heartening report, and as he spoke, she could see the gears turning in Claude’s head. The slight veneer of playfulness faded just a smidgeon, the steady leader of the Alliance coming to the fore.

“Lorenz, you will ride to Gloucester tonight. Take the, uh—Teach, which cavalry battalion is the fastest for this?”

“The Red Riders will do,” she answered immediately. Claude furrowed his brow for a second, but did not contradict her; Gloucester Red Riders were _not_ the fastest, but Byleth was very aware that the Sreng mercenaries on their payroll would not pass through the count’s territory unchallenged, Crest of Flames or no Crest of Flames. More anxiety among the retainers was hardly what they were looking for. “And take Lysithea with you.”

“Reading my mind here, Teach. Lysithea, you’re the resident expert on flushing out Empire spies. Give them hell.” The small mage on the other side of the table nodded hard, eyes fiery. “And Lorenz—”

“You don’t need to  _ coddle  _ me, Claude,” Lorenz snapped, swiping at his mouth with the very handkerchief that had been threatened to stuff it. “I’m hardly a child to chase my parent the moment he disappears from sight. If the soldiers report he is safe, then that is enough—”

“Lorenz,” Claude said. “Relieved that I am that Gloucester Senior had lived through his kidnapping without injury, what I’m expecting is that your father will react in one of two ways now. Either his new personal anxiety will make him even  _ more  _ wary of antagonising the Empire, or he will push for revenge and engage in more than we can defeat. Neither benefits us. That is why  _ you  _ are going to steady the ship.”

Lorenz shot him an icy glance. “You are treading dangerously closely to an insult to my father’s courage and composure, Claude. Tread lightly.”

“Lorenz, if I tread any lighter around you, I will be dancing,” Claude said. “Put yourself in your father’s shoes there for a moment. He just got kidnapped from his own hunting ground, it’s a blow to his pride, and the situation calls for either retreat or retaliation. And if he’ll accept aid and advice at all, it will be from no-one but his faithful son.”

Lorenz gave Claude a distrustful look, and then turned to Byleth. “Your thoughts, Professor?”

“Go now,” Byleth said. “These are grounds for retaliation indeed, but we need to stabilise the border before we plan it. And Claude is right that you are the only counsel your father is certain to listen to.”

Lorenz sagged a little bit, very clearly restraining a sigh of relief. His skin was slowly beginning to lose the unhealthy almost-lilac shade he had worn since the news of the kidnapping had reached them. “Very well,” he conceded in a lofty tone. “I go where my land and people need me.”

“Thank you,” Byleth said. “You and Lysithea should plan for your journey. Everyone else, let us retire for the night.”

“Wait,” said Catherine in her deep voice from the end of the table. “Are we not concerned about more kidnapping attempts?”

“If the Empire were to infiltrate any Alliance territory, it follows that it would be Gloucester,” said Lysithea. “The rest do not share the border with it save House Ordelia, and ourselves – we spot the eye of the Empire from miles across, now,” she added darkly, flicking her sleeves down to obscure the scars along her forearms.

“Still,” Catherine pressed, leaning forward on her elbows with an uneasy expression, “if they managed to worm their way into one noble house, there could be more. We should equip the Archbishop with a regular guard.”

“I second that,” said Seteth. “We had one kidnapping on these grounds already.”

Byleth gave them all an unimpressed glance. To her surprise, her council seemed thoughtful and concerned rather than amused by the concept of the  _ Ashen Demon  _ having an escort. “That would be a waste of men.”

“Would there, though, friend?” asked Yuri in his sugar-sweet voice. “If the Archbishop goes around as she pleases, people might get worried and disheartened that you are not protecting yourself. It hasn’t exactly been a  _ quiet  _ affair, that Gloucester kidnapping.”

Byleth fixed her eyes on him and stared until he looked away, half-amused smirk playing at his lips. “If I do have guards, it will give them a sense that there is something to worry about. This discussion is cutting into our hard-earned nightly rest.”

“Right,” said Leonie, “but since this is a concern already, you might as well address it. Let’s just take it seriously, Professor. We didn’t expect anything to happen to Count Gloucester either.” The men and women around the table nodded, various degrees of worry and disquiet clouding their faces.

Byleth sighed. Clearly, it warranted a demonstration. She rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward until her forehead touched the wood, closing her eyes against the smooth surface. “Claude, kidnap me.”

With less than a heartbeat’s delay, strong hands twisted her own arms backwards, scooping her entire body off the chair and into the air over the hard ridge of his shoulder. Without opening her eyes, Byleth kicked down. Her foot dug into the meaty side of his thigh. Claude winced, but did not ease his hold; his right arm pressed the backs of her knees flat against his stomach, avoiding more impetus. She pushed a violent knee into his liver. He coughed, cursed, pulled her away from his shoulder and into the ground, planting his feet on either side of her chest in a clear attempt to force her down with his own weight. She twisted eel-like between his arms; then, her head brushing the inner side of his thigh, she launched herself up from under him to stand back up behind his back.

Before he turned, she yanked him into an unsteady backward lean with an iron elbow around his neck, other hand forcing back both his arms, and opened her eyes. “Yield.”

“I yield,” Claude managed, half-strangled and half-laughing. She let go, raising her eyebrows in challenge at the rest of the council.

“And I  _ taught  _ him,” she informed them. Sylvain tittered into his hand. “Is this enough to ease your minds?”

“Well,” Seteth said. “It was certainly… heartening.”

“And cool to watch!” piped in Raphael. “You’re so  _ bendy _ , Professor.” Sylvain tittered again, this time more blatantly.

She looked over the table, gauging the effect; about a third of them seemed convinced, but Catherine and Leonie both opened their mouths to say something entirely reasonable, and by the looks of Flayn’s clouded expression, she had her mind to speak as well. “Dismissed,” Byleth said in a tired voice, cutting off any outstanding comments. “We can pick up the topic at another occasion. Lorenz, Lysithea – ride safe. And write to me once you’ve arrived.”

“Certainly, Professor,” Lorenz said graciously and offered the arm to the little mage. Lysithea strode past him without acknowledging the gesture; though when he didn’t follow and looked up at her with genuine hurt flashing in his eyes, she had the decency to look sheepish.

“Come now, Lorenz. No time to waste if we’re to leave tonight.”

Byleth smiled to herself as she passed them, but then she caught Catherine’s expression and frowned again. Clearly, the escort conversation was not over.

***

Biding goodnight to the council, she climbed the night-chilled stairway to the top of the monastery, where the ridiculously vast and open episcopal chambers waited for her in all their rigid, time-frozen dignity. The open hallways were chilling to the bone, and Byleth found herself picking up the pace, hoping that whichever nun tended to her quarters had enough sense to leave the fire burning. 

No such luck. More; she had forgotten to latch the balcony door shut, and the chill of the early autumn rested over the bedroom like a thin layer of frost.

For a moment, she stared, nonplussed, at the ballooning curtains and the empty yawning maw of the black fireplace. Then she pushed the door closed with more force than strictly necessary, shivered, and sat down at the mountain of paperwork piling up at the episcopal desk.

Claude slinked into the room half an hour later, dropping a heavy bag on the bed and then immediately coming to embrace her from behind. Under his golden garb he was warm like a sun-drenched roof, and Byleth leant eagerly into his arms. “… And she keeps working. Byleth, I swear on my mother’s unbeatable battle streak, if I see you sign one more requisition form today, I’ll send you off to chaperone Lorenz and Lysithea.”

“Too late,” Byleth murmured, shuffling to press against his warmth with more surface area. A shadow moved on the opposite side of the balcony; the torches of the Red Riders were pouring out of the monastery gates. “You sent him there so he could see his father, didn’t you?”

Claude huffed a deliciously warm breath against her collar and then drew away. “Of course.”

“Good work,” she said. He shrugged, kneeling down to stare up the throat of the fireplace.

“I like to think that if my loved ones are ever in danger, I won’t need to beg for the same mercy,” he said as his fingers coaxed the spark out of the tinderbox, feeding it dry kindling from the basket. The fire was slow to burn, huddling to the bottom of the fireplace like a kitten wary of the snow. “It only seems fair. Also, before you think too much of me, we do need someone to reign in Gloucester’s thirst for revenge. Myrddin is not quite as secure as I’d like it to be, by now.”

“We must push back on this attempt,” Byleth said. “Otherwise they will press their advantage. I have been considering—”

“Aha!” There was a crack and the fire roared to life, flames filling the deep cavity of the fireplace. “Annoying little thing. Well, let’s give it a second before this frozen wasteland of a room warms up a bit. I don’t suppose you’re planning on going to sleep anytime soon, are you?”

Byleth sighed. That much, at least, had not changed since his academy days. Deep as his focus could be on the few key matters, Claude’s mind was as restless and reaching out in multiple directions as she’d ever known it – one second dwelling on fire, the other on border security. “And  _ I  _ don’t suppose you’re planning on sitting down with me?”

“Not on this. You’re going about this all wrong, you know,” he said, feeding the fire before flopping flat onto the bed, forearms covering his eyes. “Any kind of show of force isn’t going to win us the advantage at the Gloucester border. I think we need to plan a kidnapping too.”

Byleth looked at him over her shoulder. “I thought our  _ methods  _ were the one thing giving us the moral edge over Edelgard.”

Claude made a small noise in his throat. “ _ Really _ , Byleth?”

“That’s what you get if you don’t elaborate,” she said. Claude muttered something under his breath before turning his head to face her, cheek burrowed in the heavy covers. “Kidnapping?”

“The difference is that she meant to force Lorenz into defecting, and us into surrendering Myrddin,” said Claude, “and I’m thinking – well. I’m hearing that Linhardt von Hevring is stationed in Hrym.”

Byleth turned around with a spark in her eye. “Oh?”

Claude laughed, turning back onto his back. “Relax, Teach. So far I’m just  _ hearing  _ it. But if Lysithea’s going, you know – he was always extremely curious about her. We’ll see if this is enough to actually draw him out of the fort.”

Byleth smiled under her breath. “You really think we can get him to switch sides?”

“Hoping to. He would be the easiest of them, at any rate. Least personal stakes in this war, and a strong preference against bloodshed.” Then, after a meaningful pause, he added, “That is, if I can actually pull off a proper kidnapping this time.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Byleth said, lips quirking. “Going against your former teacher is a tall order in any circumstance.”

“Well, I don’t need to beat myself up. You do a fine job of it for me,” said Claude. “You bruised my thigh pretty bad, you know.”

“I’ll be gentler next time,” Byleth said. When Claude did not supply a snarky retort, she turned around to see him seated up, a lazy smirk plastered across his face.

She narrowed her brows. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, and proceeded to stare at her with the expression of a cat eyeing up a particularly fatty fish.

“ _ Claude _ ,” she said, insistently.

His grin widened. “See, Teach— I enjoyed that demonstration, but I think it wasn’t quite fair.”

“Oh?” she said, eyes narrowing. Claude leaned forward on his elbows, suspiciousness incarnate.

“See,” he said conversationally, “you made it look as if I had  _ no  _ chance at all kidnapping you.”

“I think I made it look like the truth,” she said.

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. I concur, it’s not as if I can stand my own against you in single combat, even with the element of surprise—” She gave him a regal bow of the head, acknowledging his rare moment of humility, and was rewarded with a toothy grin, “—but that’s just not how I would go about kidnapping you at all.”

Byleth tilted her head to the side, contemplating. ”I have work to do, Claude,” she informed him.

“So do I,” he said. “But I think this is a very useful exercise. If you beat your tactician, brawn  _ and  _ brains, then I will support you in all your efforts to wriggle out of an escort.”

Byleth narrowed her eyes. “And if not?”

“Then I will hand-pick them myself,” Claude said with a wide grin.

She stood up and pushed the chair back, approaching him with a blank expression fixed across her features. He bore that bravely, not an eyelash twitching as she lowered herself to his side and took hold of his chin, pressing her own legs against his thighs. “You play a dangerous game, Claude von Riegan.”

“Aha. Full names. I’m in trouble.” He clicked his tongue, angling his head easily to follow the push of her fingers. “But this is not the game proper yet. This is the pre-game game. And I think I’m winning.”

Byleth rolled her eyes, but eased her grip and leaned a little closer, relishing his warmth in the still-chilly room. The fire had begun breathing heat into the air, but the quarters were too spacious for it to have effect so quickly. “You can’t win if you don’t tell me the rules, Claude.”

“But that’s a win already. I got you here.” His arm snaked its way across her back to rest on her hip, and he pressed a chaste kiss to her temple before looking back at her, eyes aglitter with mischievous mirth. Byleth bent an eyebrow at him. “Here’s the deal. I use the full extent of my wits to properly  _ kidnap you _ , and if you can free yourself within an hour, I’ll argue against your escort. And, of course, you get to be smug about it until the twilight of time itself.”

Byleth chuckled to herself. “One caveat.”

“Ah?”

“Every time I choose to be smug, you must admit I’m right. In private  _ or _ in company.”

Claude huffed into her hair, sending a warm shiver down her spine. “Fine. Lucky that I’m not planning on losing.”

“You might not  _ plan _ on it,” Byleth said darkly.

“And if I win,” said Claude, something welling in the depths of his emerald eyes, the grip on her hip momentarily tightening, “ _ I _ will choose when to free you.”

Byleth’s eyebrows rose on their own.

This time he bore her stare slightly less collectedly, but still remained composed as she looked up and down his body in a thoughtful manner. He grinned, unashamed, straightening up a little bit. “Well,” she said, “it’s almost a shame  _ I’m _ not planning to lose.”

“In the words of a role model of mine,” Claude said in a casual tone, “you might not  _ plan _ on it.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” she told him, standing up, and got a dark snicker for it. He was on his feet before her, offering his hand to shake, and she took it with cold fingers; he held her hand tight for a second too long to be strictly chivalric, his grip hot against her skin.

“Now – you’ll find that there’s way too late about  _ that, _ ” he said.

***

Byleth rapped her knuckles at the door, impatient in the chill. He had bidden her walk to the pond and back, claiming time to scheme, and despite the fact that such midnight walks were a habit of hers – which Claude had not omitted to point out, when she’d asked him whether he expected Linhardt to offer him the same courtesy of removing himself, so his kidnappers could kindly prepare the scene for the deed – she was rapidly getting both cold and antsy. She shivered, shifting weight at the doorway; a small part of herself argued that it was not chill but anticipation.

“Why are you knocking on your own door, Byleth?” Claude said from the other side, sounding entirely too amused. She exhaled through her teeth, reminding herself momentarily that the man had been her student once – it would be unsightly to her professorial honour to murder him in cold blood – and pushed it open. The warm air kissed her skin at once, fireplace crackling jubilantly at the far side of the room, sea-green curtains drawn in a warm and inviting dark; apart from the fire, a single slim candle quivered orange and gold at the side of her desk.

There was a distinct lack of Claude.

A small smile tugging at Byleth’s lips, she stepped through the threshold and tugged off her coat, relishing the balmy air of the room. “Predictable—” she began to say, swinging the wardrobe open to toss in the coat – but there was no tall figure huddled inside.

Claude laughed, frustratingly out of sight. “Must say, out of all the names I’ve been called, it’s never been  _ that _ .” She paused, hunting the direction of his voice, and he tsked. “Breaking the rules there, Teach. You wouldn’t be  _ looking  _ for your kidnapper, if nothing had tipped you off so far. Just pretend I’m not speaking.”

“Very well,” Byleth said. “I have much practice with it.” She took off her shoes and splashed her face with the water in the basin – also heated up by a thoughtful hand, she noticed with a spark of warmth in her chest – before coming to sit down at the desk.

There was a cup of green tea waiting for her by the candle.

Byleth eyed the beverage suspiciously and smelled it. It was a chamomile blend, gentle and appropriate for the night; her mouth watered at the smell, but she pushed it away and forced herself to focus on one of the countless reports piling up at her desk.

Soft steps sounded before her, and she spun around in a wide sweeping kick – but Claude raised both arms palms-up, acquiescing a few steps away from her. “Hey, hey. I’m not here. Alright? Just a voice in your head.”

“Why are you abandoning your hideout?” she demanded, lowering her arms. He’d changed, she noticed absent-mindedly; ditched the golden Alliance robes in favour of something lighter and simpler, linen trousers and rough-spun white shirt that reached down to his thighs with a black-patterned hem. The loose laces across his chest did nothing to hide the corded muscle underneath, hard planes of his breast dusted with curling brown hair.

Claude caught her eyes and grinned. “I’m not. I’m not here at all. Just wanted to, ah – have a look at you too.”

“If you interfere, I’m proclaiming the match thrown,” Byleth warned, sitting back down. If Claude  _ wanted  _ to be ignored, then he would get his wish. She felt him slip closer, lean down to ever-so-lightly graze his mouth against the crook of her neck, and did  _ not  _ give him the satisfaction of a shudder that hovered at the base of her spine. “Poison in my tea? I thought you avoided the shame of predictability.”

His breath was warm on her skin, lips brushing the shell of her ear. “You really have no trust in me as a man, do you? You’re cold and tired, Byleth. I give you my word that you can drink it without a worry.”

Byleth shot another look at the tea. It had a warm golden-brown colour, brewed without the Gloucester poetry, but with a steady hand of a poison-maker. She took another long huff, trying to determine the contents, but failed to uncover anything even remotely suspicious; only softly unfurling green tea leaves and chamomile. The smell was inviting, promising a gentle herbal relief to her parched mouth. “Your word?”

“On my honour as a Riegan,” he said, lips closing at a spot behind her ear, and a soft sigh fell from her lips.

She took an experimental sip and her eyes fluttered closed. It was a  _ good  _ tea, and the day had been  _ long _ — and miraculously, it didn’t seem that there was a lace of poison in her warm and gloriously bitter drink. It seemed to wash away her stress, easing off the tension lingering in her limbs. She groaned as Claude’s calloused fingers dug into the tender flesh at the base of her neck, seeking out knotted muscle.

“For someone so  _ bendy, _ ” he said in her ear, and her chin shook with soundless laughter before he pushed another low groan out of her, fingers trailing to the base of her shoulder blades, “you really don’t stretch nearly enough.”

Byleth sighed, at peace for a moment. She closed her eyes, revelling in the relief, warmth, and his clever pressure digging into her back – and then opened them immediately, mind clouding with suspicion. “ _ Claude. _ ”

“What,” he murmured, distracted.

“I don’t trust you,” she said, and as she did the world began to gently undulate in front of her—

“And you’re very wise not to,” Claude said, blocking the unsteady blow she levelled at him, the room, desk and fire spinning around him like the blurred circles of the merry-go-round. “The drink was clean, for what it’s worth. The  _ vapours _ , on the other hand—” He stepped out of her reach as she swung again, scrambling for purchase, the traitorous warmth of chamomile lingering on her tongue. “—well, I didn’t say anything about the vapours, did I? It’s just my luck you felt so suspicious about the drink that you had to smell it so thoroughly.”

“Cheater _ , _ ” she accused him with slurred anger. The carpet rose up to meet her, and the next thing she heard through the mist was his mirthful chuckling. He scooped her off the floor, elbows pressing her flailing knees to the sides of his chest. “You  _ interfered _ .”

“Hey,” he said over her. “I’m but a mortal. In the struggle against someone like  _ you,  _ a guy needs to really seize all his advantages if he hopes to win, eh, Teach?” She could  _ hear  _ that damn wink in his voice, and swung a slow arm to beat it out of him, but his chest was so  _ warm,  _ and her eyelids so heavy –

“Don’t worry,” Claude said, voice as dark and husky as the edges of the fireplace, licked by the same scorching heat. “You have an hour.”

***

She was going to _kill him,_ Byleth thought viciously, pulling at the binds that tied her wrists and ankles to the columns of her own bed. In yet another gesture of infuriating sweetness, he had padded the ropes where they wove around her skin. She was going to _cleave_ that clever head right off his shoulders, and she was _definitely_ not showing him the most effective knots to restrain a captive ever again – or anything remotely useful he’d ever ask for. If he was going to use her own advice against her, then from this point on she would only impart on him the most useless war counsel, and _then_ he’d be sorry—

The walnut clock at her bedside, considerately angled down to be clearly within her field of vision, showed a half-hour to midnight. She still had half her time remaining to somehow wiggle out of the binds.

She craned her neck to the side, eyeing her right wrist thoughtfully. If she did it right, well; it would be a small thing to ask Marianne for her help after that.

Then again, she considered, if the wrist did take any longer to heal, and her sword arm were weakened for any surprise skirmish—

Burns were easier to take care of. She could do it herself, without breaking the sleep of her already nightmare-ridden field healer. The pain would be fouler, but there were worse things. Byleth breathed in, focus narrowing, and exhaled blue fire along her shoulder to the wrist.

The rope glowed gold and swallowed the flame.

Byleth sucked in a frustrated breath, understanding dawning on her almost as quickly as exasperation. She hooked her thumb around the rope and yanked sideways, hard enough to break. The padding around the rope glowed the same gold, and the initial crunch of bones was stopped by a soft hiss of healing magic.

She repeated the motion with her ankles to the same useless effect. Then she stilled, considering more creative solutions.

“It won’t let you break the wrist either,” said Claude conversationally, materialising in her field of vision with an insufferable smile. “Or use your blood as a lubricant to slither out. You really shouldn’t have given me this detailed an account of how your mind works, Byleth. I think I have a pretty good idea on what you were going to try.”

Byleth lurched in her bounds, her entire body straining towards him, and to her satisfaction he took a jerky step back. But then he grinned and dropped to sit on his heels at the side of the bed, eyes glistening with the kind of glee she had not seen in him since his academy pranks. “Aren’t you proud of me, Teach? I gotcha.”

“Not yet,” she said, forcing her voice to sound calm. “That is, considering the original rules of the bet. Which you already broke.”

“I was just being creative with the interpretation,” said Claude. She felt the mattress shift as he propped both elbows on the bed, resting his chin on his knuckles to watch her fruitlessly pull at the rope. “Can’t blame a man for playing to his advantage, eh? Especially in this uneven a match?”

“Don’t you have work to do?” said Byleth.

“I do,” he admitted easily. “I tried returning some letters to the western lords. But then I realised my focus was so horrible I could not form a coherent sentence. I kept thinking about you here, and what a sight you’ll be.” Then, voice dropping, he murmured, “You always drove me to distraction, you know.”

Byleth’s mouth suddenly went dry. She strained her head up to meet his eyes; they were dark like a forest on a summer night.

She yanked at her wrists again, but the bounds held firm. Claude watched her intently, gaze fixed on the taut, shivering lines of her stomach.

“I think,” he said in a low voice, “you are finally understanding the frustration that has been my companion for as long as I’ve known you. Tell me, Byleth, how does it feel?”

She fixed her most deadpanning glare at him – but it was swallowed whole by the darkness welling in his eyes. “Would you like to try yourself?”

His laugh was warm, affectionate, but the husky edge of it reached the root of her spine. “Oh,  _ I  _ know all about it. You know what it does to a young boy when his sparring instructor decides to teach him a full-body lock?”

Byleth exhaled, heat coiling in her stomach. “He learns a full-body lock, perhaps.”

“I did learn,” Claude said, a smirk tugging at his lip. “I learnt faster than Nardel could ever force me to. I knew I had to get everything on a single try, because otherwise you’d make me do it again, and then you’d realise the  _ situation  _ in my breeches.” He rolled his shoulders, as if restless at the very memory, and Byleth could do nothing but stare. “But that was the simplest thing about it all. Eventually I could make myself tired enough to stop my body thinking about you, and if I couldn’t, well, I still had two hands and a single room.”

Byleth opened her mouth and closed it, suddenly struck by an image of a younger Claude in the privacy of his monastery bedroom, biting down on one arm, the other dug into his smallclothes—

“How long?” she asked, voice low.

“I don’t remember the start of it,” he admitted softly, leaning forward to study the hard plane of her stomach up close. The loose strands of his chestnut hair fell down to obscure his expression. “But when I started being really aware of it, it already felt like forever.”

His hand moved to touch her side, and Byleth felt herself tensing in anticipation, her skin tingling with newfound vulnerability – but then it stilled mid motion. “Now  _ that _ wouldn’t be fair, would it? I should give you the proper time. Otherwise the victory is incomplete.”

Byleth let go of a tightly clutched breath. “That from a man that would cheat his way towards it in the first place?”

“I see why you would think otherwise, but I  _ am  _ a man of my word,” Claude said. He withdrew his hand, but did not move away himself; behind the curtain of his hair, Byleth could see his mouth parting slightly, lips wetted as if in anticipation for the changing wind. “So what now, Teach? Are you going to surprise me again, like you always do? Or have I finally bested you?”

Byleth did not answer, evaluating her possibilities. Outside of a few that were likely to backfire – if Claude said he’d planned for her escapes, then he would plan for those as well - there remained one that would have surely brought down the wrath of Sothis on her head, back when it was still navy-blue. Now, though, the pulse of time remained hers to command.

She watched him for a long moment, observing the way his eyes flickered over her still, bound body. She had always known him as ambition incarnate, and ambition was just another word for  _ want;  _ and it was desire burning at the shadowed depths of his eyes, but not the kind of shameless, eager lust she’d come to expect from him.

This hunger, it seemed, had been years in the making.

“After all this time,” he breathed, hot against her stomach, and the shiver that went through her was entirely involuntary, “all those  _ insufferable  _ talents and secrets of yours – I think I accounted for them all.”

_ All but one,  _ she thought mutely, and yanked her entire body one more time, muscles straining against the golden rope. It did not work, and a slow, dark smile curved Claude’s lips into something she’d never seen in his face before.

“You have no idea how delicious it is just to watch you,” he said in a low voice. “All this time, you had me running circles around you – scheming and plotting and paying off everyone who might’ve had even a smidgeon of an idea who you were – I thought I was going mad, and you didn’t even  _ see it— _ ”

Byleth sucked in a tight breath. Claude unclasped his fingers slowly and turned away, his earring a flash of gold in the dim light of the room. It was getting warm, now; either the fire, or the scorching tension coiling in the pit of her stomach.

“ _ So impatient _ ,” he murmured, almost to himself. “You’d keep saying that. And you were right. Seventeen and lovesick, who could blame that little old me for throwing all I could at your feet and just wildly hoping? And then you danced with me – and I might’ve as well been poisoned.” The mattress creaked as he stood up, filling her vision with the breadth of his back. “But I have learnt patience now.”

The clock was now showing mere minutes to midnight. Byleth felt her pulse hammer in her ears, a tight, almost uncomfortable sensation spreading warmth at the root of her belly. “ _ Claude, _ ” she said, but when he turned around all words were pushed out of her mind at the sight of his face.

“I know you have another card up your sleeve,” he said. “Use it now, if you must. Otherwise – I’ll tell you what will happen.” He dug one of his knees into the mattress, lowering his head to face her. “I will  _ undo  _ you,” he whispered, and the emerald forest in his eyes was ablaze. “I will pick apart every single knot that makes you, and unravel them one by one, until you’re just a quivering wretch in my hands. I will take everything, even what you’ve always been holding back, and claim it as mine _.  _ I’ll make  _ you _ mine _ ,  _ Byleth, to every last inch of you, mortal and goddess, and every last secret. And— I will be  _ patient _ .”

Byleth swallowed, watching him with wide eyes.  _ Undo— _

She reached for the strands of time—

then let it slither out of her palm.

Across the monastery, the cathedral’s tower bell tolled midnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: negotiated kidnapping play, mild poisoning, rope bondage, power switch.
> 
> This was... an adventure to write. Hope it's as much of adventure to read it! Let me know in the comments. Next chapter is already written and will drop sometime next week.


	2. The Tactician's Mate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude takes his time with his prize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _*giggles at chapter title_ See, because the first one was her _gambit_ , and now it's his _mate_ \--
> 
> ... just scroll down for the porn. CWs (possibly spoilery ones) in the end notes.

Claude went very still, pupils snapping wide. His shoulders tightened visibly, bracing himself against the imperceptible temporal current that would tear away his prize, any second now – but the river of time continued unturned. The tower bells sang in Byleth’s ears.

After a long silent moment that seemed to stretch into infinity, he shifted his weight to kneel at her side. His lips brushed the corner of her mouth; but when she strained her head to push against him and deepen the kiss, he pulled away. Wordlessly he unlaced his shirt and shrugged it off. Then a blade glistened oily in the red firelight, and every instinct in her lurched forward—

Claude offered no comfort, even as a shadow passed his face at her jerk. Instead he slipped the cool iron between her blouse and feverish skin; with a  _ snick  _ of the dagger the fabric ripped cleanly along the seam and to the sleeve, leaving her side and neck perfectly exposed. He repeated the motion on the other side.

“Lift your hips,” he said in a quiet voice. Byleth stilled, unreasonably inclined to disobey.

He waited for a beat, and then pushed a hand beneath her lower back, forcing it up. What little slack she’d had in her rope before disappeared entirely; she arched at it, and Claude yanked at the back of the shirt at the same time, pulling the torn fabric off her. Then he held her there while his dagger made short work of her trousers.

When he finally withdrew and let her fall back into the mattress, Byleth looked down at herself and realised she had been left in a medallion only. It rested atop her breasts, smooth chilled surface amid rising gooseflesh and tightening nipples.

“Last chance to turn back time,” Claude whispered, crawling back on the bed to hover over her, knees digging into both sides of her waist. Byleth swallowed the dryness in her mouth at the warmth of her skin against him – and the sight of him above her, a man determined to savour the feast ahead. “Because once I taste you, not even the power of the goddess will hold me back. You know that, Byleth, don’t you?”

“That remains to be s—” she began, and his mouth cut her off.

He kissed her slowly, almost lazily, with unhurried purpose, warm lips dipping in between hers in a loose alternating pattern. Chestnut hair tickled her cheek as she craned her neck to delve deeper, but he took hold of her chin and held her still; gently, but with the suggestion that gentleness was optional, and her staying motionless was not.

He tasted, infuriatingly, of chamomile _. _

The bitter tinge irked her. Led by the same irrational instinct to defy him, she wrapped her mouth around his lip and set her teeth against it. Before she managed to bite down hard, he pulled away, hands skimming down her bare sides; one cupped her breast, the other dipped between her open thighs, a sudden thumb pressed against her centre.

The sudden oversensitivity hit her like a jolt of lightning. She jerked, twisting her hips. The muscles in her thighs spasmed in the vain effort to close them.

Claude made an amused sound deep in his throat and wiggled his fingers around her nipple, their rough texture skirting the edge of pain. Her back arched to pull away, but it only served his own wicked purpose; he lowered his head against the rising nipple and caught it in his mouth. A strangled breath escaped her at the  _ slick, warm sensation – _

“Now, then,” he said against her skin, “will you let me kiss you in peace?”

Byleth craned her head up, blinking away the shock of pleasure to give him a challenging look. “You will n—”

“My bad,” he said, flicking his finger against her clit. “See, I wasn’t really asking.”

Her hips lurched up again; her mouth parted against her will, and he seized it without a second’s pause, kissing off her choked breath. His hand left her breast to hold her chin down, warding off the teeth. He always made good on his threats; and if  _ this  _ was how this would go – if this  _ patience  _ of his would last much longer –

Squirming under his fingers, Byleth began to doubt both his sanity and hers.

At last he let go, releasing the oversensitive clit to rest his hand flat on her underbelly. As he drew away, his face bore a satisfied grin. “Well done,” he said. “Now – was it that hard?”

Instead of answering, Byleth released the tension in her fists – curled so hard into fists she could feel the tendons quivering.

It seemed to please him. He kissed her on the forehead, chastely and gently, before settling down at her side. The fingertips of his right hand hovered over the rippling gooseflesh of her stomach.

“I think,” he said softly, “now I’d like to take my time with your skin.”

She stilled, muscles taut, anticipating another jolt of overwhelming sensation – but when his hands touched her, they were unbearably delicate. He dragged a leisurely fingertip along her neck, dipping it feather-light in the hollow of her collarbone, and then back up to skim the crook of her shoulder. His touch seemed to leave a line of dancing sparks in its wake; they prickled at her, sensitive and unsure and wanting.

His fingernail grazed the edge of her neck, just at the seam of her shoulder and back. Her body shuddered entirely of its own volition, and Byleth clenched her fists again – it felt  _ good,  _ why did it feel so  _ good _ –

Claude’s dark, focussed glance turned teasing. He repeated the motion, drawing the reaction out again, and she shook under his touch as he tested out the limits of what he could push out of her in that spot: with a gentle brush, graze of his teeth, warm pressure of his tongue. She strained against her bounds as she quivered under him, trying desperately to keep quiet.

Something was coiling in her stomach, something that felt very much like fear but wasn’t; something tight and uncomfortable and hot like a smouldering lump of coal. It was as if it reached around the usual mechanisms of her desire, the familiar and  _ understandable  _ ways of seeking pleasure, and pressed straight at the nerve that clouded her mind and brought down all defences. It was the rush before orgasm, the mindlessness and heat. Except that _ he’d barely touched her. _

Time slowed down to a thick, syrupy trickle as he was making true on his promise, fingers and mouth trailing unhurried lines across her skin. Their slow progression seemed driven by some aimless, directionless curiosity that felt at odds with his usual bedroom manner. Instead of joyously exploring her weak spots, he was touching her with a lazy, cat-like expression, seizing every involuntary quiver she gave to tease out more minute reactions. It felt like an eternity before she was quivering under his hands, toes curling helplessly as one of his knuckles dragged along her exposed sides, his tongue dipping in and out of the junction of her thigh and groin. It felt – too much, for how little it was, and she was  _ not  _ going to give him the satisfaction of coming undone from just that –

His tongue darted out, sliding smoothly against her opening, and before a low moan escaped her Byleth realised exactly how  _ wet  _ she'd become.

She clamped her mouth shut, pulling her head to the side in a fruitless effort for control.

Claude chuckled. His sideburns scraped the side of her thigh as he leant his cheek against it, reclining idly to undoubtedly scan her with a war strategist’s eyes. She strained her abdomen to push him away, cheeks burning with unreasonable humiliation, and he gripped her thighs to steady himself. “Stay still,” he said. She could  _ hear  _ the lazy grin in his voice. “You know better than to stand between me and something I’m curious about, eh, Teach?”

Byleth cursed him, a harsh word broken in half as he set his tongue to her again. She flailed, teetering on the brink of – not just climax, but something hot and helpless and sticky, as if an abyss were opening under her, and her denial was all she could hold onto before falling.

“Go to  _ hell, _ ” she panted, and got only a thoughtful chuckle for it.

“You know,” Claude murmured. She could feel his breath against the sensitive skin of her thigh. “I’d go anywhere you want me. It’s a problem.”

She drew a shuddering breath. “What?”

“ _ What _ , she says, as if she didn’t know.” The weight on her leg shifted as he rested his head fully on her thigh. “It’s not only that I couldn’t best you. It was because I didn’t want to. You make me go suicidally weak, and not even mind it. You know  _ that  _ kind of frustration? It’s not fun.”

Something inside her softened. She strained her wrists against the ropes, aching to comb her fingers through the soft hair splayed on her thigh. “It doesn’t make you weak.”

“Oh,  _ shush, _ ” he said and pushed a finger through her weeping opening. A shot of lightning went through her as it unerringly grazed against a spot inside her. Her back arched as she gasped again, louder. “’ _ Hey, look at me, I’m Teach and I’m unbreakable’ _ . So far, anyway. Are you seriously  _ comforting  _ me right now?”

She managed an open-mouthed smile through another gasp as he slowly added another finger. His other hand snaked around her breast, circling around her nipple. “There’s nothing— _ ah _ —  _ wrong  _ with admitting weakness to another.”

“Unless it’s you,” he murmured. He pushed himself up to kiss her again, manoeuvring deftly so that his hands did not leave her. Byleth welcomed him with open mouth, arms straining against the rope to embrace him, hold him close, tumble around to sit on his chest and push his mouth open wider with her tongue—

He withdrew, a corner of his mouth quirking up at the frustration in her eyes. His own were pools of black, barest shadow of hooded emerald flickering beyond his dark pupils. He thrust his fingers into her again, keeping a frustratingly slow pace. “You always do it to me,” he said in a low voice. “But tonight  _ I _ ’m gonna see your control shatter. It’s high time, anyway—”

It was time, Byleth decided, to change tactics.

She let her head fall back, arms going lax against the rope, and relaxed under his fingers. The pleasure washed over her again, but it was no different than the pain of battle; just one more sensation to ride out. A moan was building in her throat, and she reflexively clamped down on it; then, with some effort, she relaxed and let it out freely. If he wanted her struggling, he’d have to try something else than  _ making her feel good. _

The satisfaction she got from his raised eyebrows was almost better than the pads of his fingertips inside her.

He cocked his head at her, and she could almost smell the smoking gears inside his mind.

“Do your worst,” she told him, and almost expected a sudden assault on her clit; but he kept up the slow rhythm, expression as steady as if he were formulating a gambit.

“I am,” he said.

She cocked an eyebrow, making a show of arching her head back, watching him from under heavily lidded eyes. She did not restrain her heavy breathing, nor the shudder that went through her as the thumb of his other hand flickered over her nipple. “Your worst is— _ ah- _ very close to your best, Claude—“

He laughed, open and affectionate, and leant in. His tongue wrapped around the shell of her ear, his own heavy breath suddenly filling her world. “The goal is,” he whispered, and every nerve on her body suddenly stood aflame at the bare  _ filth  _ in his voice, “by the end of tonight, you won’t be able to tell them apart.”

With that, he slid down and closed his mouth around her pussy.

Claude had always been a tease – she’d known as much from the moment she met him. Had she resisted, he would have taken great pleasure in pulling reactions out of her; now that she had taken away that leverage, he was most likely biding his time.

Or— he would have predicted it, and had another plan whatsoever—

Insights circled her mind in the numbing haze of pleasure, as his tongue lapped at her with practiced ease, fingers curling inside to push that tender flesh up and open for the taking. A simple cycle: starting unbearably slow and gentle, picking up the pace until she quivered with anticipation, straining fruitlessly to hasten him – and then drawing away to near-stillness, his hands dragging lazy ovals across her bare skin. Again. Again. Again.

A faint high noise caught in her throat. She could feel the vibrations of his voice as he hummed against her skin, pleased and unhurried.

The clock above her ticked softly as she squirmed under his mouth, hips undulating in a mindless rhythm, ropes glowing gold against the pull of her wrists. She had little mind to read the time, eyes flying shut at every attempt. It was  _ good,  _ Byleth told herself, good and pleasurable; and once the orgasm inevitably came it would have all been worth it.

He was patient, yes— but she taught him that patience.

For now all she was to do was endure.

Small, half-throttled moans were spilling out of her throat freely now, and he seemed to revel in it, the lips clasped around her bending into a half-moon of a smile. Surely, Byleth thought through the haze, this couldn’t go on for much longer – surely this quickening pace would be it, the climax beating inside of her to the rhythm of the pulse, and his tongue following suit, clever fingers curling inside her, hand kneading her breast, the slick warmth of his mouth pulling at her sanity –

He stopped, and this time Byleth couldn’t throttle a growl of frustration.

His eyes glittered in the dark over her. He smiled, a hungry wolfish grin. “Getting there,” he said. In a flash he was over her, kissing her greedily, his still-clothed thighs brushing against her with unmistakable hardness pulling up his breeches.

For the first time Byleth felt the force of not just her own arousal, but his.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” she warned him breathlessly when he drew away. He kissed her again, hand closing around her breast. This intensity, she thought, this growing pressure – she could exploit that. “You’ll spoil your trousers.”

He bit down hard on her shoulder.

Byleth lurched away – but the ropes held firm. Their golden glow lit up again and the half-moon wound closed immediately, leaving only the stinging sensation. She took a sharp breath.

“These are from the Imperial torturer’s chambers,” she said in a hoarse voice, suddenly sure.

Claude had the decency to look half-sheepish at that, through no mask of shame could hide the dark satisfaction in his eyes. “Edelgard and I differ in our  _ methods _ . But I’d say there are many ways you could use binds that don’t leave marks.”

The tight sensation pulled at her stomach again, this time closer to fear. “You were carrying these around since we raided Myrddin?”

“I thought they might come in handy,” he said easily and leant in to kiss her again. “One of these days, you know?”

She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or flinch away – but he took that choice from her, rolling off the bed to shrug off his trousers. He was a sight even if she wasn’t half-mad with want, and he wore his nakedness with easy comfort that radiated confidence. Candlelight flickered on the lean, packed muscle of his thighs.

Claude followed the line of her eyes, and then stretched lazily. His cock bobbed against the taut line of his abdomen, and Byleth felt her mouth water.

“Can’t spoil the trousers if you’re not wearing them,” he said.

Then he was on her, the warmth of his skin against her sending her head spinning. She craned her head up while he latched his mouth to the sensitive area between her neck and shoulder and sucked, then bit down again; she rocked under him, immobilised by both ropes and his weight, and the tight feeling pulled at her yet again, desperation and fear and the edge of terrible realisation that if he only wanted to—

He spat on his hand and reached down, giving himself a perfunctory stroke that still sent his eyes flying shut; and then, at last, she felt the scorching hot hardness push its way into her, the confines of her own flesh expanding, growing with him. 

They both shuddered in unison, and when she looked up, it was  _ Claude _ over her – the uneven plucking of his eyebrows, the familiar quirking curve of his mouth, and the shadow under his eyes that only she could see, only this close. She pushed her head up to his shoulder, suddenly furious at herself at the prickle of doubt.

It was just a game. He was still the same man; and she trusted him, false names and murky backstories be damned.

He set the same slow pace, but with purposefulness that defied his previous teasing. He held her with steady hands, fingers burrowing into the mattress to affectionately stroke her sides; but his breathing was growing as laboured as hers, and Byleth found herself responding to the rhythm, her hips rising to meet his. He didn’t stop her, and for a moment the binds didn’t exist; it was just the two of them after a long day, the masks of Archbishop and Sovereign Duke left on the top of their rumpled pile of clothes, finding each other in between the body-warmed sheets.

Then he pushed down, faster, more erratic, and she wanted to hook her ankles around his back; the rope strained again, and Byleth swore foully again, this time out of pure frustration. “Untie me,” she demanded, and he blinked back the haze to laugh at her.

“Bossy,” he said, and had the  _ audacity  _ to clamp a hand over her mouth as her breathless anger boiled over. Her yell came out stifled and helpless, and suddenly she was vividly reminded of the muffled cries of the Imperial prisoners transported to Garreg Mach. But then he wrapped his clever mouth around her nipple, one hand snaking down to dip a finger inside her juices, and then up to flicker against her clit –

She arched against him, another cry stifled in the palm of his hand. The pent-up feeling rose in her, frustration flooding her senses. She made keening, pathetic noises as he feigned to slow down again; then, with another chuckle, he removed the hand from her mouth and whispered, “I want to hear you.”

With that, he seized her clit between two fingers, hips picking up a punishing pace, and Byleth’s vision went white.

The orgasm crashed into her like a physical blow. She strained against her binds hard enough the heavy columns of the bed creaked under the pressure; and she was faintly aware of the noise in the air, the deep, guttural moan that rippled through her own throat and gradually rose in pitch; and he wasn’t  _ stopping,  _ the thrusts unerringly hitting her sweet spot again and again, until – after what felt like eternity of a climax – he shuddered over her and came with a strangled moan.

Byleth caught a shaky breath, her own body quaking softly with aftershocks. Her mouth felt parched; she’d never finished the tea. Everything felt raw and sensitive, as if she’d been submerged in lukewarm water until now, and the climax was the breaking of the surface.

Claude kissed her chin, burrowing his head in her shoulder. He mouthed something unintelligible into her skin, praise or thanks or giddy comment; and then, with barely a pause, his fingers strayed down to her clit.

She jerked at the touch, and his cock slid out of her. Claude grinned so hard his teeth caught light. “You didn’t think that would be the end of it, eh, Teach?”

“Untie me,” she commanded, jaw set hard.

“Turn back time,” he said, and demonstratively licked his palm.

“This isn’t—” She yelped as his fingers took the place of his cock, sliding smoothly in and out in an infuriating rhythm. She was  _ sensitive,  _ and she could feel the exhaustion of the afterglow setting behind her eyes. “Claude, stop!”

He did stop and regarded her with dark eyes. “I’m serious,” he said, voice low. “It’s your choice, Byleth. If you’re not taking it,  _ I  _ will decide when to untie you. And it’s not until I’ve wrecked you enough you cannot remember which name to call.”

The tight sensation returned, stronger now, pressing down on her stomach. The abyss yawned open under her, and Byleth scrambled to fend it off with anger. “You will pay for it dearly, Claude von Riegan,” she said, cold and threatening.

His lip quirked. “Oh, sure. And I’m certain I’ll enjoy it immensely.” Then he surprised her by pressing a kiss to her temple before—

She jolted, hips flailing to push him away. With an easy hand he pressed down on her abdomen, immobilising her, and put his lips to her pussy again.

A strangled wail pushed its way up her throat. She flailed uselessly, ropes glowing gold against her raw strength. The tight sensation was growing in her abdomen,  _ too much too much too much,  _ desperation and fear and overwhelming pleasure flooding her senses. She writhed under him, realising for the first time the true extent of her helplessness.

It was building, building, building – even as her voice grew hoarse and there was no hiding the open wailing cries echoing under the high ceiling – and the orgasm claimed her again, so strong her vision turned white, and he still wouldn’t let go. His hands pushing relentlessly in and out, his lips only letting go of her clit to coax her, with dark and filthy words.  _ Do it for me, love, give me one more, no, shall we say – five? Let’s put this legendary stamina to the test, hmm?  _ His voice was white noise in her ears, and she could no longer tell her open eyes from closed, everything consumed by the overwhelming burning between her thighs.

The tight sensation was building still, and she realised between one white-hot haze and another what it meant to be truly helpless: to try with all her might to stop it, and yet be forced to bear it all the same; that it couldn’t be borne but it had to; and that there would be no stopping and no mercy and no escape.

And that it was unbearable; yet it would once end, and that would be even more unbearable still. And in her incomprehensive, loud, shameless wailing, Byleth found a name for the tight sensation in her stomach: it was  _ submission,  _ the release of power she’d been holding onto so hard that her fingers had long numbed to the tension. It was pulling her under, out of the world and into her own body, no choice and no matter outside of the pleasure flooding her every sense.

The abyss pulled at her, and she sank into its depths willingly, hips writhing under Claude’s lips.

After an eternity she could feel him stop; and only then, when the relief soaked into her every aching joint, did she hear the banging on the door. The mattress gave way, and soft footfalls sounded on the chamber floor; Claude threw on her own white nightrobe, bound it loosely at the waist, and swung the door open to block the view of her with his own body.

“Guardsmen,” he said in a silky voice. “Evening. Or morning, I suppose. Why do you disturb the Archbishop’s rest?”

The reply, when it finally came after a long pause, was tinted with an audible blush. “… Your Lordship— the screams. Is the Archbishop safe? The Gloucester men told of a kidnapping…”

“The Archbishop had a nightmare,” Claude said, tone growing a little more clipped, as if irritated to disclose a personal detail. “She is plagued with many worries. I imagine having her door broken down in the middle of the night is not going to help.”

The guards responded with a stuttering torrent of apologies, and Claude relented. “It was the right thing to do,” he said. “I know  _ I  _ sleep better at night knowing the brave Knights of Seiros watch over my slumber. Though try knocking first next time, eh?”

With another string of apologies, the guards retreated. Byleth blinked out the mist over her own eyes to see Claude shrug off the nightrobe and join her back on the bed, sliding up to her with a solemn look in his face.

She held his eyes for a few long beats until he broke off the expression and grinned like a schoolboy. She giggled, and he stifled his own laughter in his fist. “That’s— uh, that’s a first,” he managed, and then curled up next to her and dissolved into wild giggles.

When he finally calmed down, he propped himself up on the elbow to watch her. His face was open, affection written plainly in every line of his normally glossy features.

“Are you okay?” he asked, an edge of uncertainty lining his voice for the first time. “I—”

She nodded her head, interrupting, and he went still. Up close, she could see her own reflection in his eyes: a rumpled flicker of flushed skin and seafoam-green hair. 

A soft, achingly gentle knuckle went up to touch her face, gathering the moisture spilled here. She turned her cheek into the caress, letting the gesture speak the words she did not utter.

“Do you,” he began in a husky voice, hesitated, and said, “want me to keep going?”

A shiver went through her. Every nerve in her body seemed to come alive, fear and unwillingness and overwhelming oversensitivity that stood beyond pleasure—

The abyss yawned open under her, and Byleth gave one curt nod.

It seemed to jolt him, his eyes darkening more than she thought possible. At her side, where his hip rested against her skin, she could feel his cock stirring back to life.

“Alright,” he breathed and kissed her, hungry again. “The noise, though—” He scrambled up, and laughed to himself again at something behind her. He reached over her to the nightstand, where a wide handkerchief with a Gloucester rose lied forgotten, and with one smooth gesture pushed it deep into her mouth.

“That’ll do,” he told her against her muffled, indignant noises of protest, and slid back down in between her legs.

***

The curtains were still drawn as Byleth slowly drifted awake, afternoon light spilling through the cracks. Her head felt swollen, pulsating with a strange sensation that was not quite ache and not quite relief. She pushed up the covers and sat up to see the already-warm, half-dark room, a messy trail of stationary and discarded clothing leading from the bed to the table, and from the table to the desk. 

Her stomach grumbled as she caught the sight of a breakfast tray.

Claude raised his head over the pile of letters. “The Fell Star has risen at last, I see.”

A blush crept up her cheeks. She glanced at the bedside table, where an armful of plain brown rope was sprawled in loose coils. Every joint in her body ached, as if she’d overexerted herself on the training grounds. “The morning council—”

“—has been postponed,” Claude said blithely. “I had a chat with the rest of the Deer and we decided that if our dear professor has, for once, decided to sleep in, we could handle things for those few precious hours. As long as it doesn’t stretch into years this time.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “ _ Claude _ ,” she said. “Did you poison me  _ twice  _ in one night?”

He chuckled, either innocent or utterly unrepentant. “You have a faint sense of your own tiredness, Byleth.”

“ _ Did you? _ ”

“No,” he said, grinning in a way that said,  _ you cannot prove me wrong.  _ She scoffed and dug herself out of the covers, reaching for the first piece of fabric she could grab to clothe herself. Binding his shirt around her waist, she pulled the curtains open, and sat down to devour the meagre remainders of a breakfast laid out on the tray.

“Hang on— gods’ sake, Byleth,” Claude said, amused and exasperated. He pulled up a lidded tray from where it stood on the desk over a small candle, and brought it in front of her. “You didn’t think I wouldn’t get you your own?”

She looked up. In the broad daylight, back in his golden attire, there was little left of the man that held her down while she writhed and screamed mercy into a crumpled gag. Only a new springiness in his step.

“Sit with me,” she said, and he complied without a word.

He waited while she ate, eyes trained on her with a familiar expression. It meant that inside, his mind was whirring restlessly, lightning up splintering outcomes and weeding out less-than-perfect words.

“I sent a runner,” he said suddenly. “After Lorenz and Lysithea. If she can invite Linhardt von Hevring for tea, I have high hopes that they’ll find some use for that spare horse I’ve included.”

Byleth closed her eyes for a moment, deciding whether to laugh or slap him. “You tested a theory last night, didn’t you?”

Claude leant forward, resting his elbows on the table, and shot her a half-lidded glance. “More than one.”

He yelped as she dug a finger between his ribs. “Hey, whatever was that for?”

She stared him down until he retreated to the other side of the table, raising his hands in a peace offering. “Alright, alright! So— about last night.”

Byleth brought a mug of water to her lips. Her throat felt parched, sore, as if after commanding in battle. Something fluttered in her stomach at the thought of why.

“… Yes?” she prompted when the silence began to stretch. He cleared his throat, a rare trace of hesitation lining his mouth. 

“You… don’t seem to know how completely you have me,” he said. “And it scares me how much—  _ not-scared  _ I am of it.”

Byleth swallowed hard and met his eyes. “Is this how it feels like?” she asked in a small voice. “Being had?”

His head bobbed in agreement. “I wanted to— for once—” Byleth’s eyes widened as she watched the silver-tongued Master Tactician fumble for words, tawny skin darkening with a flush. He swore under his breath, pushing the chair away to pace away from her. “Was it too much? I know you wanted it, and considering the memory of it still exists in my head, I assume it was— good, somehow, but I was so caught up in  _ you  _ that it didn’t even cross my mind to—”

“Claude,” she said, cutting off his stream of anxiety. He stilled. “It was too much, and I couldn’t escape.”

She could see him freeze in his tracks. “I’m—”

“It was  _ good _ ,” she said, and stood up to lean her cheek against his back.

He turned, pulling her flush against his chest. “Thank the heavens,” he murmured into her hair.

Byleth leant into him, exhaled, and let go of all else.

Some time later, when both breakfast trays had been equally demolished and the hurricane path of Claude’s messiness at least partially tidied up, they made their way downstairs to hear the council’s report. Sylvain’s face was contorting to suppress a grin every time she met his eyes; eventually he stopped his attempt to hide it, and only Claude’s blithe pointing out that the Gautier cavalry was teetering on the brink of underfundedness forced him to pay attention.

“Archbishop,” Catherine began, “during your resting hours today, we have discussed your escort. I believe a few hand-picked Knights of Seiros would do well to quell the rumours that you’re courting danger.”

“As crafty as your crowd control attempts might be, Catherine, we cannot spare the men,” Claude said before Byleth opened her mouth. As they launched into a long debate of troop assignment which, as all were aware, would inevitably end with Claude talking his way to a preferred outcome, Byleth observed his left hand. Pretending to tap his fingers against the table, he traced a few letter shapes against the wood.  _ Privacy. _

When the Red Riders came back a week later, it was just half a dozen of the vanguard – escorting a smug Lysithea and a haggard, sleep-deprived Linhardt von Hevring.

“Vapours,” was the first thing he said to Byleth, only half-accusingly. He slumped down the horse and absent-mindedly undid the bindings on his arms. Byleth stopped the guards with a gesture. “Of course, it only worked since I expected to be poisoned. It’s a pity that your tactician’s mind is occupied with the war, of all ugly things to study.”

“You could work with us,” Byleth said. “To cut the time we have to focus on the war. The faster we reach Merceus, the faster it’ll be over.”

Linhardt’s dark eyes focused on her, momentarily sharp. “I did spend a lot of time in Fort Merceus once. But who’s to say what changed, now that I and my knowledge have been compromised?”

Byleth looked at Lysithea behind him. The girl nodded, and mouthed  _ Caspar. _

“Linhardt,” she said. “Do you know why you’re here?”

He yawned, propping himself up against a guardsman’s horse. “Because refusing to retaliate after Count Gloucester’s botched abduction would have made  _ all  _ your lords angry, and Edelgard bolder?”

Byleth smiled under her breath. “They would have been ready to kill him,” she said. “In the Alliance, we don’t do that.”

“You don’t kill,” Linhardt said with flat sarcasm. She shook her head.

“If you join my council,” she said, “I promise to spare Caspar von Bergliez.”

Linhardt was silent for a long moment. His eyes flickered across the skyline of the monastery, stopping for a beat at the cathedral’s bell tower. Byleth suspected that his thoughts strayed to the Crest stones buried underneath it.

Then he turned. “Your thoughts, Lysithea?”

The girl snorted under her breath. “Well,  _ I  _ stand with the Professor,” she said.

“But is her word as true as it was, now that she’s risen from the dead?” Linhardt pressed with detached curiosity. “If I’m to be betrayed and my friend killed, I’d rather not sit on the council that does it.”

“Of course her word is true!” said Lysithea, bristling over her fur collar. “That’s why we all stand with her!”

“Fine, then.” With a small swatting gesture, he ordered the bemused guards aside; when they reflexively gave way, he walked past them and toward the lake. Lysithea hurried after him.

Byleth smiled and bade the few Red Riders to find their rest. Claude found her in the entrance hall, his grin wide enough that she didn’t waste breath telling him what had just transpired.

“Have Linhardt’s academy room prepared,” she said instead. “I think he might head there for a nap.”

“Well done,” he said. “And just like that, Merceus is ours.”

“More than Merceus,” she said. “But Hrym and Bergliez too, if we’re smart about it. And by the sound of him, he will know more about our face-changing enemies as well.”

Claude’s eyes flashed with voracious curiosity. “Oh?”

“He questioned the truth of my word now that I’ve returned from the dead, until  _ Lysithea  _ vouched for me,” Byleth said, and watched his mind spur into gallop through the mirror of his eyes. “I believe a conversation is due between the four of us.”

He nodded. “I will clear my evening--” 

“He’s going to be asleep, Claude,” Byleth said, lip quirking up, and watched as his face twisted in an almost comical pout.

Here was a man she could put her faith into, she thought as he complained without heat about daytime hypersomniacs and the general discipline of her recruits. A spiky youth who had grown out of his naivete, but not his passion. An earnest liar, burning so bright in his gold and green that the continent dared not look away; and neither could she. And he was  _ warm,  _ not with the bone-melting scorch of the sun that he wore each day, but human. Sturdy and certain, his swift fingers adept at lighting up a fireplace.

His eyes softened as he read her. Then, cocking his head, he broke the moment with a boyish grin.

“What,” Byleth said flatly.

“So I failed in  _ one  _ kidnapping attempt,” Claude said, eyes sparkling, “and succeeded in  _ two _ —”

She reached an unerring finger through the layers of his ducal garb to poke him in the ribs again. “Keep bragging, your Lordship, and  _ you  _ might be the object of it next.”

Claude swung his torso sideways, almost missing her strike. Her fingers grazed against his chest. “Counting on it,” he said, laughter in his voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: rope bondage, more overt s/D dynamic, overstimulation, oral, penetration, gagging (very end of the smut only), explicit consent. 
> 
> Comment if you liked, send me a handwritten letter if you think it should have been Seteth interrupting them.


End file.
